


life's what u make it

by fuckingfruitloop



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Endgame Fix-It, Fix-It, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Stucky - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-09 07:00:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18911896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuckingfruitloop/pseuds/fuckingfruitloop
Summary: Maybe Strange's one future doesn't happen exactly how Tony thought it would.And Steve can't lose Bucky again.aka I'm upset and I love fix-it fics.





	1. Dr. Strange's One Future (re-imagined!)

Tony understood. In the back of his mind, maybe Tony had always understood, but it wasn’t the time for him to find out.

The world seems to hold still as the gauntlet is thrown out once again. Tony catches a glimpse of Strange out of the corner of his eye. All he can register is the doctor holding up a single finger, before launching himself toward the glove. He is going to die. Whether it is the stones or the snap or the hulking mass of Thanos pummeling him to death, Tony Stark is going to die.

All he needs is to touch his glove to the gauntlet and snap his fingers. Then he can die.

Everything happens at once. The stones are on Tony’s gauntlet. He’s burning—from the outside, from the inside—half blind, in shock and paralyzed on the side of the infinity stones. He barely even registers Thanos knocking him to the ground, can’t feel it, can only hopelessly think, NO, not again.

“MORTAL,” Thanos bellowed. “I am—”

A blue blur, an inhuman shriek, and the gauntlet is wrenched off Tony’s hand. Steve Rogers doesn’t even think as he launches himself at Thanos, as Captain Marvel returns with another blast at the titan. Anything to serve as a distraction. Nebula staggers, the gauntlet’s burning through her bionic arm. Then, barely standing, blue blood dripping from her nose, Nebula snaps.

Thanos is blasted off Tony. Steve lies on the ground mere feet from him, while Marvel hovers, rage barely contained, ready to blast again. But Thanos just grunts, stumbles to his knees, and sits. He looks almost… wondrous, watching Nebula ready to collapse, but standing defiantly with her burns, blood, and the gauntlet. Nebula watches, after so many years, her father and everything he worked for fall by her hands. It feels different than she ever allowed herself to imagine.

Only after all of Thanos’s army dissolves, with him almost the last to fall, does Nebula rip off the glove and allow herself to collapse.

As the world sways and blurs before Tony’s eyes, he realizes Strange’s “one” had never been just for him.

Rhodey is the first to reach where Tony lays, followed quickly by Peter Parker and Pepper. Rhodey helps him sit up, propped up against some debris.

“We did it, Mr. Stark,” Peter breathes, almost in tears, noting the burns that char the right half of Tony’s suit, traveling up to his neck.

Pepper crouches down beside Peter, who hastily scoots aside to let Pepper kneel in front of Tony.

“Tony.”

“Hey, Pep.”

“Friday?” Pepper questions, hoping with her whole life that the burns aren’t too bad, that Tony will get through this.

“Life functions: stable.”

Pepper begins to tear up. They sit like that, Pepper’s hand over Tony’s heart, and Tony’s hand over Pepper’s, until Dr. Strange and Captain Marvel force them to get up and get care.

Bucky is the first to reach Steve. Steve isn’t in good shape either—summoning the power of Thor through a mortal body, even a super-serumed-up mortal body, took its toll. Steve forces himself to his feet again.

“Buck,” he whispers as Bucky embraces him, supporting most of his body weight in a tight embrace.

“Steve,” Bucky responds, voice equally choked up with emotion.

“I couldn’t lose you again.”

Of the three left collapsed on the ground where Thanos fell—Tony, Steve, and Nebula—Nebula is the one nobody rushes to. There is no surprise in her. She had never connected much with the Avengers. Tony, the man she had watched nearly die, slowly and without purpose, out of oxygen in space, those five years ago, is in no better shape than her. His friends and family rush to him.

“Hey,” a voice said, and Nebula realizes she had been uncharacteristically lost in thought. That had been happening more and more over the past five years. Carol Danvers is holding her hand out to Nebula.

Nebula takes it, pulling herself to her feet with a wince.

“Come on,” Danvers says. “We’ve got to get you all to a hospital.”


	2. steve's not just going to leave like that, u hecks

“You’re not coming back, are you?”

“Bucky…”

Steve had been released from the hospital just shortly after they admitted him. The damage from Mjolnir and the lightning wasn’t as bad as it looked—just some busted capillaries, which healed to minor injuries in no time thanks to the serum.

“What?” Bucky asks, harsher than he means to. He schools his tone down. Steve has already done so much for him. Given him so much. Steve deserves to live a life of his own, not a life of fixing Bucky. He needs to let Steve go. “It’s okay, Steve. You deserve it.”

“Bucky, no,” Steve says sternly.

“You’ve still got the locket of her, right? Don’t tell me you don’t want to go back for her.” No, he isn’t trying to accuse. “This is all you, man. You won. Go get the girl.”

“Bucky, _we_ won.” He reaches out for Bucky’s hand. “I can’t go back, not after everything that’s happened in this time, not after everything that’s happened to _us_ in this time. I can’t lose you again.”

“Steve, I don’t want to force you to be here.”

“You’re not forcing me to be here. This is my timeline now. This is our timeline.”  


Bucky breathes to speak again, but Steve cuts him off.

“Let me speak, okay? Please.” Bucky nods, and Steve continues. “When I volunteered to go back, the first thing in my mind was, _I can fix things_. Not in this timeline, but in another timeline, I could create a world where you never got taken again by Hydra, where I got pulled out of the ice. Where we—you and me—could live on together in our original time.

“That was why I volunteered. Peggy doesn’t need me to come back and dance with her. I loved her then, yes, and I like to believe that she loved me back. But she moved on. I’m not upset about that. I saw her again, just before she died. She led a beautiful, meaningful life. I miss her, but I wouldn’t change what happened for the world. Even if I could go back and love her now, it wouldn’t be right. She deserves the life she had, and she deserves her rest.

“No, I volunteered so I could fix us. But I realized—almost immediately—that I could never do that. I could never risk unraveling however our timelines work just to make one little selfish move to change our lives in a different timeline, where we aren’t even _us_. Besides”—Steve squeezes Bucky’s flesh hand and smiles at his metal one— “we don’t need fixing. We’re right where we should be, and we’re together.”

“Steve,” Bucky whispers. He’s on the verge of tearing up. Bucky is never on the verge of tearing up.

“I know you think you’re fucked up, Buck,” Steve continues, “but I’m not exactly right in the head either. So much of us, so much of me, has changed since 1945. I could never go back.”

“Then why are you still putting the stones back?” Bucky manages.

Steve grins sheepishly. “I know how this sounds, but it’s because I know I’m not going to fuck it up.”

Bucky cracks Steve a half smile, eyes still glassy. “Always about you, isn’t it, huh?”

Steve snorts in response. “I mean, after I thought about it—really thought about it—I knew I wouldn’t change anything. I’m not going to change anything. It’s not like I don’t trust… okay actually, it is because I don’t trust anyone else to do the same. I don’t want there to be any chance of someone ruining this timeline for us.”

“Steve, Steve, Steve,” Bucky chuckles, shaking his head. “So sappy.”

But Steve knew he was making the right choice. He could not and would not lose his Bucky again. This was his timeline, and he was going to keep it that way.

He knew then, what he felt for Bucky was more than just an attraction, was more than just sexual, was more than just a friendship spanning a hundred years.

“I love you, Bucky.”

Bucky opens his mouth silently, then a smile spreads across his face. “I thought you would never say it, punk. I love you, Stevie.”

*

“What about Nat?” Bucky asks him.

“I miss her,” Steve sighs. “I guess that’s the one thing. I don’t know what I’ll do. I want her back.”

“I want her back too.” Bucky had been thinking about their past a lot since he came back. His past with Nat. A collection of hazy memories slowly coming back into focus. She was sort of like the Peggy to his Steve, he supposed, just on the wrong side of the war. With a lot more emotional manipulation and mind control, and a lot less love. But maybe a similar type of wistfulness. If there was a chance that they could get her back…

“You know,” Bruce says, looking down at the controls of the time machine, “I really tried to bring her back. When I had the gauntlet, I really tried.” He looks up at the trio—Steve, Bucky, and Sam. “I miss her too.”

There’s a silence. Steve and Bucky look at the ground. Bruce goes back to tinkering with the controls.

Sam breaks the silence. “You know, if you want, I could go with you.”

Bucky hangs back, waiting for Steve’s response. Despite all that Steve had said, he can’t shake the fear that Steve will never come back.

Steve looks at Sam. “You’re a good man, Sam. This one’s on me, though.”

Then he turns to Bucky. He knows what Bucky is feeling, and his heart breaks a little. It feels like that night before Bucky left for the war all over again, both of them trying to look strong for each other.

“Don’t do anything stupid ‘til I get back,” Steve repeats Bucky’s line from then back at him.

Bucky allows a half-grin. “How can I?” he mirrors Steve’s line. “You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

They embrace.

“I’m gonna miss you buddy,” Bucky whispers.

“It’s gonna be okay, Buck,” Steve replies.

“How long is this gonna take?” Sam asks as Steve steps up to the time machine and suits up.

“For him, as long as he needs,” Bruce replies, looking up from the controls. The time machine powers up in the background. “For us, five seconds.”

Bruce counts down— “Going quantum in three, two, one” —and Steve is gone. “Returning in five—”

Bucky counts with him in his head.

“Four.” _Please come back Steve._

“Three.” _I love you, Steve._

“Two.” _Please don’t leave me._

“One.” _Please._

Bruce flips a switched, looks up, and Steve is back.

“Steve,” Bucky sighs in relief.

“How’d it go, Cap? No problems?” Sam asks.

“No problems,” Steve confirms. “All stones back right where they came from. Mjolnir back too.”

Steve clicks off the time travel suit, already walking toward Bucky. Bucky realizes that he had subconsciously been drifting toward Steve too. They embrace again, and this time it’s relief Bucky feels, not fear. His Steve came back, just like he said he would.

“I missed you,” Bucky says. They gaze into each other’s eyes, relieved, thankful, and together.

“Aw, come on!” Sam loudly interrupts. “He was gone for five seconds! What’s all this ‘I’ll miss you,’ ‘I missed you Steve,’ ‘I loooove you Steve’?”

Steve flushes and suddenly can’t meet Bucky’s eyes. Bucky, for the record, smoothly steps out of the hug, face a picture of indifference.

“I missed the man, alright?” Bucky says. “A guy can’t miss his best friend?”  
Steve doesn’t miss the emphasis on “friend.”

“Alright, y’all weird,” Sam says.

**Author's Note:**

> The Iron Man not dying is just because I didn't want him to die, and if I'm going to write an alternate ending, why not have him live? But Steve staying in the past with Peggy! That's the thing I really have a problem with, and that's why I'm here. Here's a rant:
> 
> Reason #1 why I hate Steve staying in the past: it's rude to Peggy's development. The Russos really did Peggy Carter dirty by implying the Agent Carter TV show was canon earlier in Endgame (Jarvis the butler, played by the same actor!) and then implying she gave it all up to be with Steve. It could have been an alternate timeline, but I feel like it ruined how they set her up as a fantastic character independent from Steve Rogers. It feels like they were reducing a badass, highly capable agent into just a love interest for Steve.
> 
> Reason #2 why I hate Steve staying in the past: he's not the same person he was then, especially in regards to how he views the government (in my opinion). They implied Steve could just shove out all his modern-day friendships, character changes, and adaptations to 21st century life. Seriously we watched him go through all that growth, go through character development where he developed distrust in the American government and missions, and make friends just for him to forget that and move back to his old life? I don’t think he physically could go sit down and live a happy life knowing everything that happened.
> 
> Reason #3 why I hate Steve staying in the past: he just abandoned Bucky!! Steve staying in the past means he just abandoned his (to the end of the line!) friendship with present-day Bucky. I know the Russos were just halfheartedly queer baiting with Steve and Bucky, but Bucky was still his best friend. Steve almost destroyed everything else for Bucky in Civil War! In Endgame they kinda imply that Bucky approves and lets him go, which I could see Bucky doing because of how he supports Steve and probably doesn't believe he's worth Steve staying. But I find it hard to believe that Steve could just leave like that after he showed how important present-day Bucky was as a friend.
> 
> Reason #4 why I hate Steve staying in the past: two Steves in one timeline? If old Steve went back, what about the fact that other him was still under the ice? Were there just going to be two Captain Americas at the end in that timeline?


End file.
